How does the public at large get screwed? Anyone in a city can order a taxi and they know what they are getting. With an Uber you may get one you may not, they may be surge pricing they may not. If you are physically disabled and require a special vehicle you are screwed. If you don't have a smartphone you are screwed. When I have caught a taxi I walk to the nearest hotel and there are always several outside.

Hello.. Uber doesn't employ anyone. The drivers aren't employees. They might employ office staff. This means they don't take any of the risk, which is a big deal. So people using Uber does not raise employment. Even if they were employees they're getting a far smaller piece of the pie than taxi drivers so the point stands. Woo.. there is Uber and Lyft. One day Uber buys Lyft and there is one company. It is different than other companies because the taxi industry is regulated, thus forcing them to care about people.

Insurance companies can't do anything they want. If I lend my car to someone else and they get in an accident, they can't legally come after me for damages. It is the same scenario with automated cars.

How can you say a vehicle that is confused by a sandbag in the road or a shopping bag blowing in the wind is better than a human? I just don't get that. You can't have a car that is going to stop for every blowing shopping bag. On the other hand, if it is a rock swinging on a rope you had better stop. From what I know about current AI, it can't tell the difference yet.

I'd rather protect a corrupt industry in need of some moderation that employs thousands of people and from which I get some benefits, rather then protect a single corrupt company that employs almost no one and cares about benefiting no one but themselves.

And unregulated taxis weren't safe, and there too many of them on the road to the point that it was causing accidents. Furthermore, there was no way to force them to accommodate people who lived in less profitable areas of a city or to serve people with disabilities. What's your point? If regulation wasn't required then it wouldn't be there.

But in this case, the public gets clear benefits from taxi regulations. The drivers are vetted, the cars are fitted with safety equipment, there aren't too many of them on the road, they can be contracted to be waiting where people need them like at hotels and airports, and all people in a city get served equally no matter what area they live in or what kind of physical disability they have.

I think he means what happens when the battery degrades to the point of not charging fully as all batteries seem to do. I think that is partly the point of this move, to make headphones disposable so that people get locked into buying fresh ones every couple years.